KECHUMARAN: A family of non-Indo-European languages
spoken in the Andes of South America.

KENNING:
A form of compounding
in Old
English, Old Norse, and Germanic poetry. In
this poetic device, the poet creates a new compound word or
phrase
to
describe
an
object
or activity. Specifically, this compound uses mixed imagery
(catachresis)
to describe the properties of the object in indirect, imaginative,
or enigmatic ways. The resulting word is somewhat like a riddle
since the reader must stop and think for a minute to determine
what the object is. Kennings may involve conjoining two types
of dissimilar imagery, extended metaphors, or mixed metaphors.
Kennings were particularly common in Old English literature
and Viking poetry. The most famous example is hron-rade
or hwal-rade
("whale-road") as a poetic reference to the sea.
Other examples include Thor-Weapon as
a reference to a smith's hammer, battle-flame as
a reference to the way light shines on swords, gore-cradle for
a battlefield filled with motionless bodies, and word-hoard for
a person's eloquence. In Njal's Saga we find Old Norse kennings
like shield-tester for warrior, or prayer-smithy for a man's heart,
or head-anvil for the skull. In Beowulf,
we also find Anglo-Saxon banhus ("bone-house")
for body,
goldwine gumena ("gold-friend of warriors") for
a generous prince, beadoleoma ("flashing light")
for sword, and beaga-gifa ("ring-giver")
for a lord.

Kennings are less common
in Modern
Englishthan in earlier centuries,
but some common modern examples include "beer-goggles"
(to describe the way one's judgment of appearances becomes
hazy while intoxicated) and "surfing the web" (which
mixes the imagery of skillful motion through large amounts
of liquid,
amorphous material with the imagery of an interconnected net
linked by strands or cables), "rug-rats" (to describe children),
"tramp-stamps" (to describe trashy tattoos), or "bible-thumpers"
(to describe loud preachers or intolerant Christians). See
also compounding
andneologism.

KHOISAN: A family of non-Indo-European languages spoken
in the southwestern regions of Africa.

KIGO:
A traditional "season-word" in Japanese haiku.
The kigo must appear within a haiku's text or
be strongly implied by imagery. These words place the haiku
within a specific month or season, establishing an atmosphere
for the poem while maintaining brevity. Japanese books of poetry
are usually divided according to season, with the five Japanese
seasons being Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and New Year's added
as the fifth season to Europe's traditional four. The kigo
can be an actual reference to the name of the season or a month,
or it can be a traditional connotative word: cicadas, fireflies,
flies, frogs, and mosquitoes are common kigo for summer
haiku, as are billowing clouds, summer storms, burning
sunshine, fans, midday naps, parasols, and planters' songs.
Fall kigo include references to the moon, falling leaves,
scarecrows, the call of crickets, chrysanthemums, and allusions
to the cold weather, lengthening nights, graveside visits, charcoal
kilns, medicinal roots, gourds, persimmons, apples, and vines.
Winter kigo include imagery of snow, bowl-beating rituals
or begging, allusions to failing strength, charcoal fires, banked
fires, socks drying, the old calendar, mochi (festive
rice-cakes) and mochi sellers. Spring kigo include
cherry blossoms, and so on. The following haiku by Bashó
illustrates the kigo:

KILTARTANESE:
Lady Augusta Gregory's term for English with Gaelic syntax--i.e.,
the
dialect of English spoken in Kiltartan, a townland close
to her home at Coole Park. Lady Gregory chose to use this
dialect and its distinctive Gaelic features for her translations
of Old Irish tales in Gods and Fighting Men.

KINESICS: In linguistics, the analysis of how body
movements can communicate meaning.

KLEOS (Greek,
"What others hear about you"): Renown, honor, glory,
and fair reputation achieved
through great deeds--especially battle but to a lesser extent
in Olympic games, poetry contests, and literature. The Greeks
thought of
kleos as something transferred from a father
to
a son,
and the son would inherit the duty for carrying on and building
upon the "glory" of the father. In Greek literature, kleos becomes
a predominant concern of epic heroes like Achilles, who must
choose between achieving
kleos but dying in battle, or having a long and
happy life but having his name fade after a few generations.
See also
fame/shame
culture.

KNIGHT:
A military aristocrat in medieval Europe and England who swore
service as a vassal to a liege lord in exchange for control
over land. The term comes from the Old
English word cniht, meaning young man or
servant-boy. The process of becoming a knight was a
long one, and small boys would begin their training as a page
at court, serving food or drink to their elders, running messages
and errands. They would be expected during this period to learn
the niceties of polite society and respect for their elders.
The next phase of training was serving as squire to another
knight. The squire would be expected to polish and clean his
knight's armor and weapons, care for and feed the horses, and
wait upon his master during jousts or military service. He would
also learn the finer points of fighting and riding. The final
stage of knighthood was a semi-religious ceremony that varied
in its details from one geographic area to another. In the late
medieval period, the position of knight often became hereditary,
and the title Sir, Ser, or Don was indicative
of this rank. Associated with knighthood in the later Middle
Ages were cultural phenomena such as feudalism,
the cult of chivalry
and courtly love.

KOINE
(Grk, "Common"):
(1) Common or lower-class Greek as it was spoken throughout
the Mediterranean regions during the
Hellenistic
period up through the last days of the Roman Empire. The Greek
New Testament, for instance, was written in Koine Greek
as opposed to the literary language of Classical Greek. (2)
Figuratively, any widely distributed variety of a language--i.e.,
a lingua
franca.

KOTTABOS:
A rowdy Greek drinking game. After draining the wine in
a kylix, the drinker
would
stick a finger through
one of the handles and rapidly spin the kylix around. He would
then suddenly stop its motion, and the dregs of the wine would
shoot forth from the bottom of the kylix. We aren't exactly
sure what the rules were for the game, but apparently the
competitors tried to aim the dregs so they would land in a
large flattish bowl or else hit a specific target in
the room. Amongst
the competitors who successfully hit the target, the one with
the best spatter of rays in the splash pattern would be declared
the winner, with six-pointed stars being worth more than five-pointed
stars, and so on, (i.e., the messier the impact, the more
points it was worth). We can imagine the contest was a
fairly wet one, and that
often
the
ceiling,
the
walls,
and furniture
(or even
other competitors) would end up spattered with the lees. In late-night
dinners as depicted in Plato's Symposium, kottabos would
have been one of the primary entertainments.

I consulted the following works
while preparing this list. I have tried to give credit to specific sources when
feasible, but in many cases multiple reference works use the same examples or
provide the same dates for common information. Students should examine these
resources for more information than these humble webpages provide: